


Hey sister, do you still believe in love? I wonder

by trying_to_spell_both_our_names_at_once



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula wasn't always like that okay!, Character Study, Crazy Azula (Avatar), Gen, Honestly just an exploration of their relationship, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), I like to believe Zuko and her had a really good relationship before their father tore them apart, I love her and that does translate into this story lol, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Protective Katara (Avatar), Protective Zuko (Avatar), She had to be an innocent kid at one point too, She's just a good friend, Sibling Relationship, Sibling Rivalry, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, not really - Freeform, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trying_to_spell_both_our_names_at_once/pseuds/trying_to_spell_both_our_names_at_once
Summary: He stared at Azula and he wondered when this had all gone wrong. When they went wrong. When they stopped being siblings and started being enemies. When her laughs of joy turned into whatever the hell these were....A small exploration of Zuko and Azula's relationship and Zuko reflection on his sisters' breakdown after their Angi Kai
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 106





	Hey sister, do you still believe in love? I wonder

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea stuck in my head and just kind of wrote it as quickly as I can. It's a bit rough, but I like it anyways. I just wanted to explore some of Zuko's feelings towards Azula, especially after watching her breakdown. I hope you enjoy!

Zuko thought the stars looked very beautiful that night. 

He thinks he would appreciate it more without the lighting cackling inside his chest. He wondered if touching a star felt like getting hit with lighting. He thinks the rush would be the same, the cackling energy filling up every inch of you, the white-hot jolt of electricity that raced through you, the overwhelming heat that was a million times hotter than any fire Zuko had ever produced. It would probably hurt the same too. 

Zuko stared up at the stars with Azula’s lighting having just barely missed his heart and he had to laugh. He’s now officially fought in three Angi Kai’s. Once he was too cowardly to fight back, and the other two times the people he fought against broke the rules. Did he technically win if Azula broke the rules? Angi Kai laws sure said so, but Azula always changed the rules to her advantage, so he wasn’t that sure. 

Distantly he could hear Katara and Azula fighting, and that raised his heart rate just a little bit higher. Or a lot higher. Shit. He was supposed to be protecting her. He knew she could handle herself, Katara had more than proved herself to be a deadly good bender, but this was Azula. No one knew her better than Zuko did. 

He tried to move, reaching out his arm and trying to push himself to his feet, but the second he shifted his world turned from relatively high pain to a shining world full of it. He let out a gasp and fell back down, tears stinging his eyes as he tried to suck in a breath. Shit. It missed his heart, but he was pretty sure it at least singed his lungs. Why hadn’t he noticed how hard it was to breathe?

He closed his eyes. Then immediately regretted it because he was enjoying looking at the stars. He opened his eyes again and tried to take a deep breath. It felt like his lungs were about to pop, and every breath tasted like ash and sulphur. The pain had dulled down to a steady ache again, which was nice for him. He should get up and help rather than lying here like a useless lump on a log. 

But this was nice. He could distantly hear fighting and screaming and he wanted to cry and sob and scream and laugh but the stars twinkled up above him and the ache in his chest was getting worse and for a second he thought this might be it. 

He thought that in a couple of minutes he would take one last shuddering breath and the pain in his chest would surge and the last lingering bits of electricity would sap the rest of his energy and he would just cease to exist. A part of him wanted to lie down and let it happen. It would be fitting wouldn’t it? His life was ruined in one Angi Kai and lost in another. His father permanently disfigured and disabled him and his sister killed him. 

Hell, maybe he’d stay alive long enough for Uncle to come along and hit him or something, just so that every living member of his family can tear his life apart in some way or another. 

But Uncle wouldn’t do that. Uncle was good. Uncle was kind. Uncle loved him, and wasn’t that funny? 

Zuko laughed, although it sounded more like a wheeze to him. Air was kind of getting a bit harder to pull in. He really hoped Katara managed to subdue Azula and do it quickly. 

Angi he really hoped Katara subdued Azula. The thought of his friend lying somewhere, burned by his sister’s fire or cackling with electricity as her heart stopped pumping-

He shut that thought out fairly fast. Katara was strong. Stronger than anyone he had ever met, if you ignore Aang of course. But Aang was always meant to be strong, Katara was strong because she willed it to be so, because she fought hard to prove everyone who thought of her lesser wrong. 

Azula was strong too. But she was always strong. She would always be strong. The Spirits looked down and blessed her with power than no one should hold. A power that consumed her. Zuko had seen her fight, had felt the wild way her fire leapt. It was perfect as usual, but there was a hint of madness to it, a wrongness that Zuko never wanted to feel again. 

He blinked, and suddenly Katara was hovering over top of him. That was nice, that meant she won. Or couldn’t find Azula and came back to him while his sister lay in wait to kill both of them. When did he become such a pessimist? That was an easy question. When wasn’t he a pessimist? 

“It’s going to be okay,” Katara was saying, but the words sounded like it was coming from very far away. He watched distantly as she bent water over his chest, the watched filling the marks in his chest and racing through his chi paths. Her face was bent in concentration and tears were running down her face. He wondered how bad it looked. It must look ugly for her to be that upset. Or maybe she was just tired of healing burnt skin and soothing the leftover bolts of lightning that were embedded in her friends. 

Friends. He liked that he thinks. He never thought he’d get there, and he was sometimes skeptical that he was, but he wanted to. He wanted to call them all friends, wanted to laugh with them and talk to them and feel safe around them. 

The pain started to ease in his chest, lessening slightly as he sucked in a full breath. That was good. He still tasted ash on his tongue and felt pain race through him every time he breathed, but it was better now. He thinks he isn’t dying anymore. 

“I think you’ll be okay,” Katara let out a breath and the water bent back into her waterskin. “That’s all I can do for now, but I think it’ll be enough. I will be monitoring it, and you will be taking it easy for at least a month.” 

He opens his mouth to protest, thinking of the hundreds of things he will have to do if he’s appointed to Fire Lord. He doesn’t want to think if he’s appointed Fire Lord. He really hopes Aang and the others are okay. 

“Azula?” He croaks out instead, needing to know the fate of his sister. He shouldn’t care, she just tried to kill him and his friend, but he does. He needs to know. 

Katara’s face goes stormy, and she nods over to the side of the courtyard, helping him sit up properly so he could see. 

His sister was in chains. Her hands were pulled behind her so she couldn’t bend and she was screaming. He watched as she thrashed, fire spurting out of her mouth and she screamed and laughed. He had never seen her like this, so unhinged, so out of control. Azula was all about control, everything about her was controlled. She was one of the most powerful firebenders in the world, had so much control of herself that her fire ran blue. 

And yet here she sat, fourteen years old with wild eyes and flames spewing from her mouth uncontrollably. He looked at his little sister, _his little sister_ , and he saw nothing that resembled a human. 

He felt something crack inside of him that hurt ten times more than her lighting through his veins. 

She started laughing harder, gasping sounds like she couldn’t pull any more breath in as she cackled. She laughed like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She laughed like something inside her snapped and if she stopped laughing she would start sobbing. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Katara was gently helping him to his feet, and he followed blindly because his brain and his body weren’t really communicating well. But he continued to stare at his sister as Katara slowly started leading him away. 

He stared at Azula and he wondered when this had all gone wrong. When they went wrong. When they stopped being siblings and started being enemies. When her laughs of joy turned into whatever the hell these were. 

____________________________________

“Come on Zuzu!” Azula cried, racing down the halls, Zuko at her heels. He couldn’t see very well out of the mask Azula and him had crudely made for this moment. “You can’t play a villain if you can’t catch up!” 

“You will regret ever crossing me,” He dramatically insisted, reaching forwards and making his fingers curl into claws. Azula screeched in glee as she continued to run, leading him towards the courtyard. 

“You’ll never defeat me,” She declared, grabbing at a stick and holding it out like a sword, Zuko quickly dove to get one of his own as they circled each other, sticks held out threateningly. Zuko grinned under his mask, even though Azula couldn’t see it. She was only four years old, but her face was twisted into one of grave seriousness, like she was genuinely the last Dragon Hunter ready to slay the Dragon King. 

Zuko moved first, reaching out and whacking his stick against hers, the sharp crack of wood hitting wood ringing in his ears. They danced around each other for a while, sloppily lunging and blocking and slashing at each other as they taunted. 

Eventually, Azula knocked the stick out of his hand, lunging forwards and stabbing his chest with it. He fell dramatically back, hand clutching at his chest as he collapsed, gasping for breath. 

“I am the mighty Azula!” She declared racing over to him and raising his stick over her head. “I will kill all the last dragons and become the most powerful Firebender in the world. Any last words you scum?”

“Even with my last breath,” Zuko said dramatically, his voice lowering to a growl. “I will never submit to you. Long live the Dragon King!” 

Azula lifted the sword up and swung down, but Zuko batted it away and instead reached up towards her, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground beside him. 

“Zuzu!” She squealed as he pulled her into his arms, fingers finding those secret spots on her body that were ten times as ticklish as everything else. 

“Never underestimate the Dragon King!” He declared, tickling her as she trashed and pushed at him, giggling loudly in the empty courtyard. 

“Not fair!” She said breathlessly between giggles, her head thrown back and hair messed up as she squirmed. “That’s not how it goes!” 

“Well the Dragon Hunter should have been more prepared,” Zuko giggled, grinning widely at his little sister. “Never trust the Dragon King, he’ll do anything to win.” 

“Zuzu!” She squealed pushing away at his hands, finally he stopped, letting her catch her breath as he lay there, still giggling and grinning up at him. 

“I think the Dragon King won,” He said smugly, pulling off the paper mask. 

“Never,” She said, sitting up and grabbing at the stick, hitting him in the side before he could react.

“Ow!” He cried, pain blossoming from the hit. He was about to scold her, but her smile dropped from her face and Zuko was having fun. He liked it when Azula laughed and smiled and they got along. So he pushed away the stinging pain and annoyance and fell to the side. “You got me!” He cried, and Azula was grinning again. “You killed the Dragon King once and for all! My legacy will forever live on, but my species! Dies! With! Me!” 

He splayed out on the ground, closing his eyes and letting his head lull to the side. Azula cheered and cackled, and he cracked open his eyes to see her jumping up and down, clapping her hands. 

“I killed you,” She said gleefully, laughing as she jumped on top of him. 

“You did,” He replied with a smile. “But next time I get to be the Dragon Hunter.” 

“You’d never get a chance to kill me,” Azula turned her nose up into the air. “I’d be too powerful.”

“We’ll see about that,” Zuko told her, sitting up and pushing her off. “We gotta get to training soon.”

“Why do I have to train,” Azula flopped back down. “I’m already better than you, isn’t that enough?”

Zuko ignored the sting. 

“I can’t summon a flame,” He said, a little bit of bitterness seeping into his voice. “Of course you’re better than me. Once I start firebending I’ll leave you in the ash.” 

“Keep telling yourself that Zuzu,” Azula grinned, but it didn’t seem malicious. “Can we get a fruit tart before we go?”

“Sure Zula,” Zuko grinned, standing up. “Want a piggy back?”

“Yes please,” She grinned, jumping onto his back. 

He ran as fast as he could with her squealing on his back and thought that if he could stay frozen in this moment forever, he would. 

____________________________________________

Lighting flashed outside and Zuko stared at it with a morbid fascination. 

He was seven years old and he loved storms. The thunder rumbling throughout the air, the electricity cracking through the sky, the rain pelting down at all sides. 

They didn’t get storms much throughout the year. There was a very specific time they got them, and for about a month it would be non-stop downpour, thunderstorms rattled in between.

Zuko thinks that a dragon’s roar would sound like thunder. The booming loud crash that would shake the entire palace, that made some of the weaker hearted servants jump and cower at the magnitude of noise. He can imagine dragons soaring above the clouds, their roars burst of thunder and their anger bolts of lighting. 

He sits awake in bed, despite the sun going down hours ago. When it storms out the sun is normally covered with clouds, and it tended to leave Zuko feeling sleepy all day. Mother had let him take a nap earlier that day, so now that it was actually time to sleep he found it evaded him, especially with the loud sounds of thunder every couple of minutes. 

So instead of even trying to sleep he sits awake, staring out the window of his room and listening to the pattering rain and booms of thunder. Every now and then a bolt of lightning would light up the room and Zuko would watch it arch down through the sky, deadly and beautiful. 

The door to his room creaked open. Through the darkness he watched as Azula slunk through, her shoulders set back and head held high as she closed the door behind her. 

“Azula?” He asked, squinting into the darkness to try and see her better. It didn’t go well, so he just waited for her to speak or state her intentions. 

He wished sometimes that she was the same happy-go-lucky four-year-old that she used to be. Every since she started getting better at firebending father had taken an interest in her, spending more and more time with her as she got older. Zuko hated it.

First, father never spent that much time with him. And when he did, most of it was insults and scathing comments that made Zuko wilt with the weight of his father’s disappointment sitting on his shoulders. But Azula got everything she wanted. Father praised her, he taught her, he smiled at her. Zuko would admit that he was jealous. Of course he was. 

Secondly, she was acting less and less like his sister and more and more like father every day. She never wanted to play make-believe or pretend to swordfight anymore. Her versions of games included shooting fire at him as fast and often as she could and giggling when he panicked and couldn’t redirect it away. Whenever father was watching she was cruel and downright mean, using insults she picked up from him that hurt ten times more coming from her mouth. 

But sometimes, when they were alone, she was back to the same little sister she always was, teasing and poking fun at him but not maliciously, wanting to play and letting him reach out and touch her to help calm his own nerves. She was harder now, even at five years old, but deep down she was still a softie, still a little kid, still his sister. 

“It’s loud outside,” She said, her voice strong and loud but he could sense the undercurrents of something else stuck in it. He said nothing to that, only raised up an arm and gestured to the bed. 

She wasted no time walking over and crawling in beside him, tucking herself into his side and wrapping her arms around herself. Zuko knew she hated the storms. They were too loud and too bright for her, and the flashes of lighting always seemed to make her nervous. 

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tighter against his side and wrapping the blanket around them both. She ducked her head and seemed to relax slightly, and Zuko grinned down at her, a feeling of pride growing in his chest. 

Azula came to him when she was scared. Not mother, not father, but him. She may try and put on her brave face for the rest of the world, but here, in the darkness of his room, she was just his little sister, and he knew that he would do anything to make her feel better. 

A flash of lightning lit up the room, and Azula flinched beside him, before tensing up so hard he thinks she might not be breathing. It reminds him of how he reacts whenever father starts yelling at him. 

“It’s okay to be scared,” Zuko whispers to her, gently squeezing her arm. He tried to think of how Mother comforted him. She was good at it.

“No it’s not,” She sniffs. She sounds miserable and every bit as old as she was. Nothing like her high and cold voice she put on for father and more like the whiney five-year-old she was. “It’s weak and pathetic. I’m not weak or pathetic Zuzu.”

“I know,” He tells her, thinking back to training that day when she nearly perfected a kata two weeks after learning it. Her flames were starting to flicker blue, something that made Father smile in joy and Zuko horribly envious. “You’re super strong Azula.” 

“You think so?” She asks, sounding very small. “Would I be strong if the storm scared me?”

Zuko takes a minute to consider that. Storms scared a lot of people. Zuko had seen many servants cower away from the noise and eyes widen every time the lightning flashed. He didn’t think they were weak. Father also said he was weak, but Zuko wasn’t overly scared of the storm either. 

“I think you would be,” He shrugged. “Everyone is scared of something. And I think a storm is a perfectly rational thing to be scared of. And you’re a rational person right Zula? You’re smart and you think things through. You know storms can be dangerous, and being scared of them in a logical response to that. I think you’re plenty strong no matter what.” 

“Father would think I’m weak,” Azula whispered under her breath, and Zuko wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She was right after all. Father wasn’t scared of anything, even if it was rational to be. He viewed any fears weak and utterly pathetic. If father was here he would be sneering at them both for their childish behavior. 

“Father’s not here,” He tells her, and although it made his own heart stutter with the act of blatantly seeming to disrespect his father, Azula relaxes into his arms, so he figures he said the right thing. 

“It’s really loud,” She whispered, seeming to feel comfortable enough to confide in him under the darkness of their room. “And it’s like I can feel the electricity in the lighting and it’s really scary Zuzu.” 

“It’s okay,” He whispers, pulling her closer until she was sitting in his lap. “I’ll protect you.” 

“You promise?” She asks, turning to look at him and he can see her wide gold eyes. 

“Of course,” he promises, squeezing her hand. “I’ll always protect you Zula.” 

“I don’t need your protection,” She says, but she’s smiling and he knows for a fact that he would do anything to protect her. She was his little sister, and no matter how strong her firebending was, no matter how weak he was, he knew he would do anything in his power to make sure she was safe. 

“Obviously,” He teased lightly, making her pout. “Wanna see something cool?”

She nodded, and he opened a palm in front of her, lighting a tiny flame on his hand and carefully molding it into a dragon-like shape. It wasn’t that good, because he still had little control over his flame no matter how hard he practiced, but the general idea was there, and it was enough to make Azula smile. 

He focused hard and bent it even further, making its wings flap and it danced around his hand, flying and jumping through the air. 

The next time lightning struck, Azula was too busy giggling at the flame dragon to notice. 

__________________________________________

Zuko limped away from his sister, arm wrapped over Katara’s shoulders as she helped him limp away. The pain was slightly better now that it was healed, but every breath still seem raw and every nerve seemed to dance in his body, still writhing with the remains of electricity running through them. 

She was leading him towards where Appa is and where the others are supposed to meet them, but Zuko can’t bring himself to move. Katara is practically dragging him, and she’s saying something, begging him for something but he can’t listen. He’s too busy staring at his little sister. 

He remembered not long ago when he refused to think of her like that, refused to see her as a sister, as someone he needed to protect and love. Afterall, how could you love a monster?

But that wasn’t right. Azula wasn’t a monster. Yeah, she was cruel and heartless and had tried to kill him less than an hour ago, but she wasn’t a monster. She was a fourteen-year-old girl poisoned and blackened by her environment, just like he was. 

When had he stopped seeing her as a sibling and more as a rival? Was it when Father kept them apart other than training, when she would ruthlessly beat him over and over again until is pride and body were aching? Was it when she learned how to best use words to tear and manipulate? Was it when she was taught that she was the only person she should look out for and that having close bonds with others was wrong? 

He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either. All he knew was at some point he stopped looking at her as someone he should protect and more like someone he needed to take down. When had he stopped loving her and started hating her?

She didn’t need protection, of course she didn’t, she was one of the most powerful firebenders in the world, but that didn’t matter. Katara was a water bending master and Sokka still did everything in his power to protect her, because that’s what you do for siblings. 

But Azula and he weren’t siblings. They haven’t been in years. Zuko couldn’t deny that, not after years of hate and anger between them, not after multiple attempts of murder on both sides. 

Still, seeing her restrained, chained to the wall as she thrashed and screamed, fire and sparks still sprouting from her mouth. She looked so _small_ like that, huddled against the wall, struggling to free herself, eyes wild as she stared at him. A part of him hates her. Hates her for blindly following their father, for trying to hunt him and his friends down, for trying to kill him less than an hour ago. He can still see her proud smile as he fell, the glee in her eyes as he was hit with her lighting. 

But seeing her like this, curled up and swinging wildly between anger and despair, he could do nothing except pity her. He could see a bit of himself in her, the desperate need to be perfect, the anger and hate rotting in their veins. Only difference was that he learned better, and she let that hate and anger fester until it drove her mad.

She started to speak, screaming and yelling and begging and Zuko wanted to go and pull her into his arms. He wanted to go back years to when they were both young kids and stop the rift from growing between them. He wanted his sister back. 

“Please,” Azula was begging, her voice a mix of frail weakness and long-festering anger. “Please let me go, please stop it, Mother please I’m sorry.”

Zuko closed his eyes, unable to stop the tears from welling up in them. Why was she talking about mother? Why was she begging mother for something? He didn’t want to know what was going on inside her brain, what was triggering this breakdown. Looking back, it was long coming. 

“Zuko!” She wailed, and he flinched back as her eyes met his, wide with unshed tears. “Zuko please I’m sorry, please let me go I don’t like this, please Father will kill me, Zuko!” 

He started to move towards her, that soft part of him he never was able to tear out squeezing with her words, but Katara pulled him back, arms firm around him. 

“Don’t,” She said firmly, lips pressed into a line. “Zuko she’s unstable.”

Sure enough, when he looked at her now she had swung back to anger, screaming and yelling with flames and smoke pouring from her mouth. To him, she just looked broken. 

“We need to go,” Katara said gently, tugging on his arm slightly and leading him away from her. “The other should hopefully be here soon. We’ve done what we had to.”

Zuko nodded, even as it cracked something deep inside of him. He turned his back to his sister and followed Katara out of the courtyard. From behind him, he could hear Azula start to laugh. Desperate, breathy laughs of someone pushed too far over the edge. 

He thinks about her laughing as he held her down and ticked her. 

He thinks of her giggling as he made a little dragon out of flames. 

He remembers her cackling as his father burns his face off. 

He closed his eyes and walks away, pretending like Azula’s laughter wasn’t echoing in his ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This story is a bit rough and I might come back and expand on it more later, but I honestly couldn't get any school done until I got this out there so here it is lol.


End file.
